Banking calories

Yes, I try to eat lower calories during the week to have more to splurge on the weekends.

This is interesting and I cant believe Ive never thought of this. How many calories do you "bank" a day. What do you eat on a "normal" day and then what do you eat on days you bank?

You can look at your weekly stats on the phone app (go to nutrition > calories> and then switch to "week view".
If you turn it over to "net", you'll see a number "Net Calories Under Weekly Goal". Also "Net Average". If you usually keep things in the green, you'll accrue a deficit for the week. Last Sunday we had wings for dinner - I ended up at 1850 net when my goal is 1280. But my weekly numbers are still within my goal because I'd been a bit under the rest of the week (mostly due to my bike commute exercise calories, I'm not actually eating that little).

Certainly it "works" in that it can be an effective strategy for managing your calorie budget. Many people do this. I usually eat 200 kcal under each week day so that I can have 500 kcal extra each weekend day.

A few things to watch out for:
- You shouldn't cut too much off of your daily budget. And the smaller your budget, the less you can and should cut from each day. Otherwise you risk hunger and fatigue, and possibly other ill effects. I wouldn't dare cut more than the 200 I'm cutting now, for example, and I'm thinking of dialing that back.
- You will see larger weekly variations on the scale and will probably show an increase over the weekend, even if you are cutting, due to increased glycogen. I always see a weekly "ripple".

For me, personally, I don't even try to budget for big events like Easter. I've been fasting and penance-ing since March 1 and look forward to the Easter octave with great joy.

robynrstiles wrote: »

I've seen people talking in here about banking calories. Does that actually work? If you know you have a meal coming up, like Easter dinner for example, that you know will go above your daily goal, can you eat less calories during the week leading up to it?

I don't typically bank calories, at least not purposefully...if I'm cutting weight, I'm already at a deficit and I like to keep that relatively modest for performance and recovery reasons...I think further underfeeding and banking a bunch of calories throughout the week would likely lead to some issues for me.

If I'm cutting weight, I typically look at holidays and other special occasions as just that...occasions, and I plan to eat maintenance or thereabouts. If it's going to be a feast I'm most likely to either skip breakfast or have a much smaller breakfast than normal...typically our feasts are mid afternoon, so it's really comes down to me having a smallish breakfast and then one other big meal...I also tend to naturally eat a bit less the following day. A maintenance day here and there can actually be beneficial for hormone regulation and help in weight loss endeavors.

sgt1372 wrote: »

I don't do it "on purpose" and don't believe it works in the way people think it works.

If you maintain your diet (whatever it is) 5-6 days a week and then binge 1-2 days because you've "banked" calories so that you'll still be below your cumulative caloric limit for the week, I think that your body will become confused by the large influx of food calories on the binge days, which could prompt it to "save" the excess calories as fat instead of just burning them. Then after you go back on your lower cal diet, the body will start burning any excess cals saved on the binge days, so that they don't accumulate as excess fat/weight.

I don't have any "proof" of this but it seems the better approach would be to just to maintain the same eating habit consistently, which is what I do and what has allowed me to be successful in both losing weight over 6 months previously and maintaining it over the past 4.

I've lost 130lbs averaging my calories on a weekly basis. Works just fine for me.